TAX SALE. A sale of lands for the non-payment of taxes assessed thereon.
2. The power of sale does not attach until every prerequisite of the law has been com plied with. 9 Miss. 627. The regularity of the anterior proceedings is the basis upon which it rests. Those proceedings must be completed and perfected before the authority of the officer to sell the land of the delinquent can be regarded as consummated. The land must have been duly listed, valued, and taxed, the assessment roll placed in the hands of the proper officer with authority to collect the tax, the tax demanded, all collateral re medies for the collection of the tax exhausted, the delinquent list returned, a judgment ren dered when judicial proceedings intervene, the necessary precept, warrant, or other au thority delivered to the officers intrusted with the power of sale, and the sale adver tised in due form of law, before a sale can he made. Blackwell. Tax Titles, 294 ; 4 Wheat. 78 ; 6 id. 119; 7 Cow. N. Y. 88; 6 Mo. 64; 12 Miss. 627; 6 Serg. & R. Penn. 332.
8. There are important details connected with the auction itself and the duties of the officer intrusted with the conducting thereof.
The sale must be a public, and not a pri vate, one. The sale must take place at the precise time fixed by the law or notice, other wise it will be void.
It is equally important that the sale should be made at the place designated in the adver tisement.
The sale to be valid must be made to the "highest bidder," which ordinarily means the person who offers to pay for the land put up the largest sum of money. This is the
rule in Pennsylvania; but in most of the states the highest bidder is he who will pay the taxes, interest, and costs due upon the tract offered for sale for the least quantity of it.
The sale must be fnr cash.
• Where a part of th.e land sold is liable to sale and the residue is not, the sale is void in toto.
The sale must be according to the parcels and descriptions contained in the list and the other proceedings, or it cannot be sustained. When a tract of land is assessed against tenants in common, and one of them pays the tax on his share, the interest of the other may be sold to oatisfy the residue of the assessment.
Where several parcels of land belonging to the same person are separately a.ssessed, each parcel is liable for its OWII specific tax and no more.
The quantity of land that may be sold by the officer depends upon the phraseology of each particular statute.
Where, after an assessment is made, the county in which the proceedings were had is divided, the collector of the old county has power to sell land lying in the territory in the newly-created county. 4 Pet. 349, 362 ; 4 Yell. Tenn. 307 ; 11 How. 414 ; 5 Ired. & R. No. C. 129; 24 Me. 283 •, 26 id. 306; 13 Ill. 253; 9 Ohio, 43; 13 Pick. Mass. 492; 21 N. H. 400; 9 Watts & S. Penn. 80. See Blackwell, Tax Titles; Washburn, Real Prop. 540.